THE PALLILOG
Rockets will need a leap from Jalen Green next season
Jan 28, 2022, 10:04 am
It's been a rough stretch for Jalen Green. Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images.
Down to four teams left in the NFL playoffs. Even the almighty NFL can't call it the Final Four, the NCAA owns that trademark. Conference championship games works just fine. First up Sunday is Cincinnati at Kansas City, where after their stupefying win over the Bills the Chiefs are solid seven point favorites over the Bengals. Then it's San Francisco at Los Angeles where the Rams are favored by three and a half, though it's a toss-up as to which team will have more fan support. Two weeks ago the Bengals snapped a 30 year playoff victory drought with their win over the Raiders. Then last week they topped the AFC top seeded Titans in Tennessee for their first road playoff victory ever. That leaves just one existing NFL franchise to never have won a postseason road game. Wanna guess? To cut a little slack the Texans are the youngest franchise, but zero for 20 years is another Texans' dubious distinction. As a yes or no question, will the Texans play in an AFC title game before the 2030 season?
Speaking of the glory-deprived local NFL squad, six head coach interviewees down, how many more to go? If the Texans are indeed disclosing all they talk with, it seems odd that Bills' offensive coordinator Brian Daboll has not gotten an invite. Daboll has Patriots ties, and has done fabulous work helping develop Bills' quarterback Josh Allen. It's also possible that Daboll expressed utter disinterest in the Texans' gig at this time.
Hall of Fame
A couple of days after David Ortiz made it easily while Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens came up short for a 10th and final time in the traditional baseball writers' Hall of Fame voting, worthy elections this week of outfielder Terry Puhl and executive Tal Smith to the Astros Hall of Fame. Quirky stat alert! OPS+ is the number that distills to one number a player's performance as a batter, adjusted for the parks in which he played. For example, batting .300 with 25 homers in a season in the 80s while playing one's home games in a pitching haven like the Astrodome was a greater accomplishment than doing so in a hitter's delight like Fenway Park. Terry Puhl's batting average over 14 seasons as an Astro was .281 with an OPS+ of 112. Craig Biggio's career batting average was .281 with an OPS+ of 112. This is not suggesting that Terry Puhl was close in greatness to Biggio. It's an interesting statistical coincidence, that does illustrate Puhl was a good player for many years. Smith had three different stints in the Astros' organization, most notably the second during which he was the architect of the 1980 Astros who became the first postseason team in franchise history.
College hoops
The Houston Cougars continue to cruise through their grossly inferior American Athletic Conference competition. They may fall prey to an upset or two (at Central Florida Saturday is a possibility...but I doubt it), but the league is so weak it is making this season much less interesting than things will be when UH makes the move to the Big 12. At UCF the Coogs try for their 18th win of the season. That's in 20 games. The Rockets Friday night try for win number 15. That's in 49 games.
Rockets
Zero reason to panic over Jalen Green's disappointing rookie season, but it has been seriously disappointing. Any suggestion that he's making steady improvement is silly. Green's shooting numbers for the season are wretched, over the most recent three games "you have to be kidding me" awful: six for 40 from the floor, one for 17 from behind the three point line. Defensively, Caddyshack's Ty Webb would say about Green "You're not, you're not, you're not good." Still, Green turns only 20 years old in a couple of weeks and clearly has above average NBA athleticism. On the other hand, he is one and a half seasons removed from high school just like Cade Cunningham, Evan Mobley, and Scottie Barnes. They went first, third, and fourth in last summer's draft where the Rockets selected Green second. Cunningham, Mobley, and Barnes in some order would be 1-2-3 for Rookie of the Year right now. Green wouldn't get a mention. The 2020 number two pick in the draft, Charlotte's LaMelo Ball, has a serious case to be added as an All-Star reserve. If the Rockets hope to shorten their run as an NBA doormat, they will need a leap from Jalen Green next season.
Buzzer Beaters:
1. Most bad teams do it, but it really was laughable of the Rockets to push for their guys as All-Star game starters. Shockingly, none made it.
2. Tal's Hill didn't belong in the field of play at Enron Field/Minute Maid Park, but was outstanding aesthetically and did provide some exciting and/or amusing moments.
3. Healthiest greens: Bronze-broccoli Silver-spinach Gold-kale
Most Popular
SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome
Listen Live
While holding one’s breath that for a change the Astros aren’t publicly grossly underestimating an injury’s severity with Jose Altuve having missed the last game and a half with “right side discomfort…”
The Astros averting a sweep vs. Oakland Thursday was in no way a must-win, but getting the win allowed a mini sigh of relief. The Astros are NOT in the process of choking. Could they collapse? Sure that’s possible. Also possible is that they’ve just been in one more ebb phase in a season of ebb and flow. They certainly have left the door ajar for the Seattle Mariners to swipe the American League West, but with the M's simply not looking good enough to walk through that door the Astros remain in commanding position. The Astros made a spectacular charge from 10 games behind to grab the division lead. But there was a lot of runway left when the Astros awoke June 19th 10 games in arrears. September 3 the Astros arose with a comfy six game lead over the M’s. With Seattle blowing a 4-1 eighth inning lead in a 5-4 loss to the Texas Rangers Thursday night, heading into Friday night the Astros' advantage is back up to four and a half games despite the Astros having lost six of their last nine games and having gone just 10-12 over their last 22 games. Not a good stretch but nothing freefalling about it.
While the Mariners have the remainder of their four-game series vs. the dead in the water Rangers this weekend, the Astros play three at the lousy Los Angeles Angels. The Astros should take advantage of the Halos, with whom they also have a four-game series at Minute Maid Park next weekend. Since the All-Star break, only the White Sox have a worse record than the Angels 19-31 mark (the White Sox are 6-43 post-break!). Two of the three starting pitchers the Angels will throw this weekend will be making their third big league starts. To begin next week the Astros are in San Diego for a three-game-set against a Padres club which is flat better than the Astros right now. That does not mean the Astros can’t take that series. The Mariners meanwhile will be still at home, for three vs. the Yankees.
There are some brutal Astros’ statistics that largely explain why this is merely a pretty good team and not more. As I have noted before, it is a fallacy that the best teams are usually superior in close games. But the Astros have been pathetic in close games. There used to be a joke made about Sammy Sosa that he could blow you out, but he couldn’t beat you. Meaning being that when the score was 6-1, 8-3 or the like Sammy would pad his stats with home runs and runs batted in galore. But in a tight game, don’t count on Sammy to come through very often. In one-run games the Astros are 15-26, in two-run games they are 10-14. In games that were tied after seven innings they are 3-12. In extra innings they are 5-10. The good news is, all those realities mean nothing when the postseason starts. So long as you’re in the postseason. In games decided by three or more runs the Astros have pummeled the opposition to the tune of 53 wins and 28 losses.
General Manager Dana Brown isn’t an Executive of the Year candidate, but overall he’s been fine this season. Without the Yusei Kikuchi trade deadline acquisition the Astros would likely barely lead the AL West. Brown’s biggest offseason get, Victor Caratini, has done very solid work in his part-time role. Though he has tapered off notably the last month and change, relief pitcher Tayler Scott was a fabulous signing. Scrap heap pickups Ben Gamel, Jason Heyward, and Kaleb Ort have all made contributions. However…
Dana. Dana! You made yourself look very silly with comments this week somewhat scoffing at people being concerned with or dismissive of Justin Verlander’s ability to be a meaningful playoff contributor. Brown re-sang a ridiculous past tune, the “check the back of his baseball card” baloney. Dana, did you mean like the back of Jose Abreu’s baseball card? Perhaps Brown has never seen those brokerage ads in which at the end in fine print and/or in rapidly spoken words “past performance is no guarantee of future results” always must be included. Past (overall career) performance as indicative of future results for a 41-year-old pitcher who has frequently looked terrible and has twice missed chunks of this season to two different injuries is absurd. That Verlander could find it in time is plausible. That of course he’ll find it? Absolutely not. His next two starts are slotted to be against the feeble Angels, so even if the results are better, it won’t mean “JV IS BACK!”
Presuming they hold on to win the division, the Astros’ recent sub-middling play means they have only very faint hope of avoiding having to play the best-of-three Wild Card Series. Barring a dramatic turn over the regular season’s final fortnight, Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown are the obvious choices to start games one and two. If there is a game three, it is one game do or die. Only a fool would think Verlander the right man for that assignment. No one should expect Brown to say “Yeah, JV is likely finished as a frontline starter.” But going to the “back of the baseball card” line was laughable. Father Time gets us all eventually. Verlander has an uphill climb extricating himself from Father Time’s grasp.
*Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via The SportsMap HOU YouTube channel or listen to episodes in their entirety at Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.